What’s an entity?
In Auvik, an entity is a managed item. Entities range from devices and interfaces to VLANs and Wi-Fi networks. Entities can be associated with one another in many ways. Together, they build Auvik’s inventory of your network.
Using search & filter
You‘ll find search boxes all around the Auvik dashboard which can be used to locate or filter an entity or group of entities, such as in the examples below. The principles by which searching and filtering work are the same regardless of where you are in Auvik.
Device inventory
Map search
Alert entity selection
Facets
When searching for entities, there are various search facets available. The facets vary based on the context of the data being displayed. You can click in the search box to see a simple list of the available facets, or you can type ? to get the facets enumerated in the form of a drop-down menu you can select from. You can see examples of both ways below, in the context of a map search.
On click
Using '?'
List of possible matches
As you are typing a facet, Auvik will display the list of possible matches for that parameter on this context, like in the example below. This will be updated with every character you enter.
After adding a facet - number of matches
As you add and remove facets from your search, you’ll see the number of entities matched by your current search below the search box or as part of the section heading, depending on the context.
Combining facets
It’s important to understand how facets affect one another to produce a result, when they are used in combination. Auvik automatically adds the logical AND/OR operators between facets based on the types of facets used. Like facets use the OR operator, and unlike facets use the AND operator. The order in which they are added doesn’t matter because Auvik automatically groups them together logically.
You can combine as many facets as you like. Adding more like facets can increase the number of matches, while adding more unlike facets can reduce the number of matches.
Combining like facets
When combining multiple like facets such as device type:, the logical operator is treated as an OR.
In the example below, Auvik would read the search as device type: Firewall OR device type: Switch, and would search for all firewalls or all switches.
Combining unlike facets
If you combine unlike facets, Auvik groups all the like facets together as usual, then compares the groups to one another using the logical AND operator.
In the example below, Auvik would read the search as (device type:Firewall OR device type:Switch) AND (network: VLAN30 (phones) OR network: VLAN40 (wired)). Based on these parameters, Auvik would look for all firewalls and all switches, but only those that are also part of VLAN30 or VLAN40. Said another way, it will look for all devices that are part of VLAN30 or VLAN40, but only devices that are a firewall or switch device type.
Using the NOT operator
The NOT operator allows you to remove entities from your search. To use a NOT facet, add not: in front of the facet you want to exclude.
When adding NOT facets with other additive facets, the like facets are again grouped together. The logical AND operator is used to add the NOT facet to the other groups of like facets.
Existing search - before NOT facet
After adding NOT facet
In the example above, Auvik would read the search as not:device type:Printer AND vendor: HP AND (network: 10.0.40.0/24(WaterlooWired) OR network: 10.0.20.0/23 (WaterlooWireless) OR network: 10.0.0.0/24 (WaterlooMgmt). Based on these parameters, Auvik would look for all entities that belong to each of the networks 10.0.40.0/24, 10.0.20.0/23, and 10.0.0.0/24, that are also HP devices, but are not printers.
Special circumstances
- For device/interface alerts, device type filters can be used to select child interface entities, but interface filters can’t be used to identify parent device entities.
- For device/interface alerts, when an entity selection matches interface entities, if both device and interface filters are in use, only the interface filters apply.